Or clings instead stark to dark
tossing hope to mope
on mind’s morass.

What was, was.
Soak in sulk of done gone past
or get off your ass.

Rise to wise.
Work the struggle puzzle.
Don’t rewalk past acts.

– Smith, 5.26.2016

Back 2006-9 when we were living for 31 months in 10 counbtries on 3 continents, this blog had a huge readership with many comments. When we returned to Cleveland March 2009, I still wrote a lot on the absurdities of returning to American kulchur and kept most of them.

Then I got tired of myself, my words, and went to posting a poem a day with 2 fotos. No one reads poetry so we lost pretty much every reader . . . although I’m surprised more folk didn’t follow the fotos.

So now no one’s reading, next month I’ll start writing stuff again. Of course there’ll be no one there to notice, which will make it hard to win readers back.

But there’s still a vague chance I’ll be recognized before I die for my art, poetry, and writing, so this will be a warehouse of delight if and when I am. And more importantly and logically, this is a storage locker for our future books.

It boggles my mind how large an audience a lot of famous folk have for their second rate output. Talent seldom trumps luck and who you know. Donald Trump is a perfect example of this.

We took the first hour of 4 and manned the SPACES Gallery poetry tent across from the West Side Market yesterday. Folk would walk up, we’d ask their name, a few questions, then write a free poem for them. We wrote 18 in an hour, so we each had 7 minutes max to question, write, fotograf, and give. Fascinating process . . . fast, fun, little time for depth, more a process of impressionistic reportage.

It was a blast, especially due to the two children who received poems — our 1st customer was Audrey, 4-yrs old, who also took our spaghetti squash I’d drawn a funny face on.

Our first 4 folk had names starting with A, as did numbers 6, 7, and 12 so the A’s, about 4% of the alphabet, took 39% of our output.

Thanks to SPACES staff Mimi Kato and Marilyn Ladd-Simmons for their prep work, hosting, direction, and encouragement. And thanks to our friend, teacher, ceramicist, and neighbor Angelica Pozo for asking Lady & I to participate in this.

Pedestrian Poetry by the People, Smith shift, 2015

SPACES Gallery hosted a bazaar tent where folk could sit, tell us their name, a bit about themselves. and we’d write a quick poem for them. Lady & I had first shift 10-11 in hot sun under blue sky in open air square across from the West Side Market. First of 18 seekers was 4 yr old Audrey who took the free spaghetti squash with a crazed face I had drawn, then asked me to write “Sally” across the front.

AUDREY

Audrey who loves spaghetti squash
She named her “Sally”
It’s a beautiful blue day
Just as beautiful as Audrey

While you’re in Cleveland
Catch the poetic wind by
chance
Like spiders strapping themselves
to a string of web
& leaping – wind carrying
them to a destination
Cool little city on a hot day
Bright blue promising sky
Like a present for everyone
– travel

~

TIPAKORN

Gorgeous name
carries wind of promise
adventure pure
in lands of sun
and shine
and light rain

(he mentioned after his name has to do with the sun)

~

BENJAPORN

It is a day
of special names,
beautiful names,
people flowers flowing
in market square . . .

sun rising

~
LILY

What a treasure to meet
an adventurer – Lily from
Thailand
Sky high in blue clarity
Crepes in hand, sweet-or-savory?
All I can do is draw from
my own memories of travel –
& of living in an unfamiliar
place
And then the pleasure of feeling
it slowly becoming my own

~

BLAKE

Blake from the up-down city of
Detroit – visiting the up=down
city of Cleveland

Both cities laden with urban
decay for urban explorers –
cities of salt, rust, and some
unmown grass

Promises in new construction,
kindled interest – monied interests –
we hold our own pockets open &
hope! For kinds of rain.

~

LYNN

For family & friends
and southeast side
excursion to the Market
and gathering of clan
circling the falling
to catch up with laughter
& learning in sum

Artistic neighbors meet at
beloved community spot –
Market Square – food,
tents, people with a bit of
spare time

Megan & Aidi – sharing a
memory in the making Aidi
will remember the rest of
her life – these similar
moments – time with
Mom, the community of
female friends

~

STEVE

Steve to Steve
from Tampa to Cleveland
Welcome
may your flux flow
and feel be fine
cuz any friend of Rafeeq
is fine to find

~

JENNIFER

Welcome back, welcome back to
the puppy dog people of Cleveland
salt of the earth, prone to hellos
& self-deprecating answers
How familiarity is like a warm
bath, a kind of indulgence –
& maybe you are thinking, “Oh –
I can come home again – &
this is what it’s like!”
Cleveland-to-Tampa-to-Cleveland
again couple

Familiar – from another northern
Ohio city – Toledo! So happy
to meet you, neighbors!

Like sausage gravy & biscuits –
Like where one is comfortable –
Sampling the degree of
separation from here to there –
Thinking – “We should do this
more again!”
Thinking – “So many places in
Ohio”
Taking life like seizing the day

– Smith & Lady, 9.5.2015

us with Amie & Mitzi – foto by Mimi Kato of SPACES Gallery

After our shift, Lady asked Mimi Kato to write a haiku in Japanese for Lady’s next online issue of TheCityPoetry.com. We are going to take time to test time to see how we find out what it means down the road.

Of honeyed pastries sampled by cupids bows of beestung lips, of truth’s shimmering antimony, of galena’s grit, poison powdered from the monadnock to kohl the pretty eyes of infants of India, of beautiful dreamers destroying nightmares, the bewilderment of complex confusions, dazzling disarrays brushed into the great mother’s dustpan, reverently tucked up and put away, of murmur’s collected chorus wandering under the scintillating cast of wondering stars

Away from the melee, away
from the undertow of the appalling,
the maelstrom of the loathsome,
surf the cosmic way rather

Take the bank of your life to
the here now of corporeality, an odyssey
with you and me, the hero’s journey of art,
cameras in our hands, beginners’ eyes
delighting in novelty, so many maiden voyages,
riddles like rooms of zoomorphic fish canoes
oared by crews from shadowy odeums,
neighbors and friends

The fish is not your mother
but embrace the story – maybe she is
your mother, echoes of time, tide lapping us,
sated travelers startling awake like from
the twirling skirt of our lake’s wet tongue

Laying flowers side by side on the table
to array the palette of a bouquet, my jackleg fingers
in this matter remembering the words of
Thich Nhat Hanh, “leave space in
between things.”

Looking towards learning skillful compositions,
juxtapositions of color and shape and mood, so many
ways to make and discover frontiers

Which reminds me of you–how you
would have every day novel, a zany birthday party
on a dance floor platform for whirling happiness, your
camera curiosity seeking out photos like the world
is full of easter eggs, and it is

Yet sometimes the spicy lightning
of your attention’s like you’re zapping barbed xrays
of unjust situations with moralizing words–promising
them their comeuppance

Condemnation of entire domains
heuristically earned yet with wild daisies of grace
sprouting exceptions to the rules and you smile with
surprise like the cheer of holding my hand and running
through a sprinkler

I’m growing a whole bunch of exceptions for you,
a lawn, a street, a town, a county, a country, the world–
I’m gathering them and the other flowers
for the fiesta of our lives